Learn how St. Michael’s saved time with one system while increasing engagement and giving
Chris Peterson, Steward for Administration, St. Michael Catholic Church
Summary
Parish: St. Michael Catholic Church | Archdiocese of Seattle
Type: Catholic | 2,300 families
Using Pushpay since: ~3 years
Products: ParishStaq (ChMS + Giving + Custom App + LEAD App + Forms)
A 2,300-family stewardship parish found a platform that didn’t just help administrators. It equipped lay leaders and parishioners too.
KEY RESULTS
- Replaced 10 separate tools with one integrated parish platform
- Equipped lay leaders with self-service tools for groups, scheduling, and communication
- Increased digital giving adoption and recurring giving sign-ups
- Streamlined faith formation registration and tuition collection
The situation
If you’re managing a parish with ten different systems and none of them talk to each other, you already know: you’re spending more time on workarounds than on ministry.
St. Michael Catholic Church has deep roots. It started as a mission in 1845 and became a parish in the Archdiocese of Seattle in 1875. Today, it serves 2,300 families with faith formation ministries for all ages, over 40 small groups, more than 30 ministries, and community outreach that includes operating a men’s shelter with a neighboring parish, housing up to 20 men nightly from November through March.
Running all of that on disconnected tools was unsustainable. Chris Peterson, Steward for Administration, described the breaking point: “We had ten tools, it was crazy. It created so much more work.”
The parish needed one system that could handle operations, giving, and communication. But what set St. Michael’s search apart was a deeper requirement: as a stewardship parish, they didn’t just want tools for staff. They wanted tools that would help every parishioner engage more fully in parish life. Peterson was clear about what drove the decision: “Engagement was the real reason why we chose it. We didn’t find any other program that could actually do what we were able to do with ParishStaq.”
The solution
St. Michael’s adopted ParishStaq as their single connected platform, replacing ten separate tools with an integrated system that serves three distinct groups: staff, lay leaders, and parishioners.
| Capability | How St. Michael’s Uses It |
| ParishStaq ChMS | Centralized parish data and operations, giving staff a shared view across 30+ ministries and 40+ small groups instead of siloed spreadsheets and calendars. |
| Forms | Simplified faith formation registration and tuition collection. Jackie Shirley, Steward for Faith Formation, called it her favorite feature: “It’s so easy to use and so easy to set up. It just makes our life here a lot easier.” |
| Groups | Empowered lay leaders to manage their own communication and scheduling without routing everything through staff. Peterson saw the shift immediately: “When I start to see lay leaders communicating or scheduling things, that’s something off my plate so I can focus on something else.” |
| Pushpay Giving | Replaced a cumbersome giving system that was creating friction for parishioners. The result: more donors moving to digital, more recurring giving sign-ups, and increases in offertory and outreach giving, even through COVID. |
| LEAD App | Gave parish leaders mobile access to profiles, communication, and collaboration tools. For Fr. Jim Lee, St. Michael’s pastor, who has limited mobility due to ALS, having the app at his fingertips is more than convenient. It’s essential to staying connected to his people: “We can have some idea of who a person is, how we might be able to assist them, how we might connect them with other ministries in our parish.” |
The results
Three years in, St. Michael’s has moved from managing ten tools to operating on one connected platform. Staff collaborate more fluidly. Lay leaders run their own groups without bottlenecks. Parishioners engage with the parish through an app that makes giving, registration, and connection simple.
But for Fr. Lee, the deepest impact is cultural. A stewardship parish runs on the belief that everyone has a role to play, and the technology now reflects that conviction at every level.
“Having a happy, integrated, engaged staff is not only important, but it’s also crucial. We’ve been working at this very intentionally for the last three to five years, and having tools to assist us in being able to do that, stay connected with one another, and then stay connected with our parishioners, is incredibly helpful for us all to work well together.”
Peterson put the parishioner experience simply: “I hear our parishioners say ‘I love this app. It’s so easy to give.’ When you remove barriers for people to live out discipleship, and being generous is one of those aspects, it makes it easier for them to do it.”
Community Size
Key Tools
- Faith Formation Management
- Groups
- LEAD App
- Giving
Results
"If we're going to bring Christ to the world, everybody needs to be involved in that mission."
